Indian Sudoku Championship - 2025

Summary:

Kishore Kumar Sridharan won his 2nd Indian Sudoku Championship. The competition saw the return of 9-time Champion Rohan Rao, who started strong and topped two of the rounds, but it wasn't enough to surpass Kishore's steady performance across the four rounds. Kartik Reddy continued his progress in recent years by equaling his best finish of 3rd place, as in 2023.

Aanya Sachdeva was the youngest participant of the Championship at age 17. Aanya had an impressive showing in the online rounds leading up to the tournament and finished at 29th place here in her debut year.

The Above-50 category saw a total of 7 solvers, with Jaipal Reddy M emerging with the top ranking among them. K. Ravichandran and Anuradha Ganesh rounded up the podium at 2nd and 3rd place respectively.

Like last year, the number of female competitors was 9, with Pooja Bansal taking the top spot. Anuradha Ganesh and Priyam Bhushan finished at 2nd and 3rd respectively.

LMI extends sincere gratitude to authors Ashish Kumar (Sudoku Gift), Bill Murphy, Chandrachud Nanduri, James Peter, Madhav Sankaranarayanan, Nikola Zivanovic, Philip Newman, Prasanna Seshadri, Priyam Bhushan (Fun Evening Event) and Wessel Strijkstra, and to all the test solvers, volunteers, etc. who helped put this top-quality event together.

Now, some notes about the remainder of the event.

Sudoku Fun Event:

While checking went on for the ISC results, as is tradition, a fun mini-event was held. This year, the event was conducted by Priyam Bhushan. The participants were divided into groups of 4, and were taken through 2 rounds of a breezy competition. The first round was a quiz with some questions about the Indian and World Sudoku Community and history, and the second round was about solving mini Sudokus while taking a risk on negative points if they are accessed but don't get solved.

The round was great fun for all involved, and Kishore's team, called Team KAKA after the initials of the four people on it (Kishore, Aashay, Kishan and Anuradha), won the competition.

Sudoku Mahabharat Playoffs:

Once the checking was done for the ISC main rounds, it was time for the Sudoku Mahabharat Playoffs. The Sudoku Mahabharat concept came to be in the year 2015 with a vision to provide a stepping stone to the players who are below the usual qualifiers, and encourage them to go further and become contenders for the team. There are strict eligibility criteria to achieve this end, and the top 3 is decided in a playoff contest based on the rankings in ISC among the eligible participants.

The SM Playoffs have two stages, first choosing the 3rd place contender from among the 3rd, 4th and 5th best eligible solvers from the ISC rankings and then holding another playoff to determine the top 3 rankings.

At the 2025 edition, the 3rd-5th place playoff was contested by Tushar Maheshwari, Pooja Bansal and Akash Doulani. Tushar, starting at 3rd place, won the playoff to hold on to the spot going into the second playoff. Here he faced competition from Hemant Malani starting at 2nd and Harsh Poddar leading the pack. All three competitors struggled on the Thermo Sudoku but Harsh was quickest to correct course and make it to the second Sudoku, a mini-Mastermind like Round 4. Harsh finished it by the time the other two got there, and then it was a race for 2nd. Hemant managed to finish just before the 20 minute mark, which solidified the top 3 spots as the same ones going into the playoffs.

Harsh Poddar is the 2025 Sudoku Mahabharat winner. Hemant Malani and Tushar Maheshwari were 2nd and 3rd respectively.

Conclusion:

The Indian Sudoku Championship was held successfully and showcased a high level of Sudoku solving talent pitted in competition. The event also provided a platform for many solvers to shine in their respective categories and gave a chance for the Indian Sudoku community to get together and celebrate their shared interest. Here are the full results.